Pixel Uniforms Made American Soldiers Easier To Shoot

In 2004, American Army personnel were issued with a bold new camouflage design, one based not on wavy woodland patterns, but pixels. It looked cool in a photo, but hasn't worked so well where it counts: on the battlefield.

The Universal Camouflage Pattern, or UCP, is a grey-green uniform that was supposed to allow soldiers to blend into almost any terrain they may find themselves in. Look closely - or, really, just look at it - and it's made up of large pixels, like the background art of an old NES war game.

Tragically, it seems the decision to adopt the design nearly a decade ago was made by politicians and top brass, and not the men and women who would actually be wearing it into battle.

"Essentially, the Army designed a universal uniform that universally failed in every environment," an Iraq veteran told The Daily. "The only time I have ever seen it work well was in a gravel pit."

The problem with UCP was a simple one: it doesn't work. A design supposed to make soldiers harder to see has in fact made that job easier for the enemy, and things got so bad that in 2010 the US Army's combat forces in Afghanistan were issued with a new design after repeated complaints.

Bizarrely, the UCP's origins date back to a similar Marine uniform designed in 2002, that was designed...differently.

"They went to Home Depot, looked at paint swatches, and said, ‘We want that colour,' " Anabelle Dugas, one of the Marine pattern's designers, says. "That color" was part of a Ralph Lauren paint series.

While Army personnel outside Afghanistan are still stuck with the UCP, the branch is currently hard at work on a replacement design, one that this time might actually take soldier's views and needs into consideration.

Yes they knew that eventually COD and BF franchises would allow players to slave away (or pay) to unlock the UCP designs, which would actually help faux soldiers in the digital landscape. Too bad real ones, with real heartbeats stick out like dogs balls.

I never understood that digi-camo. I thought MAYBE it was designed to disrupt the image of the soldier when they are viewed through a digital display, because MAYBE that's the way the are mostly viewed in this 'modern warfare'. But apparently not.